New Zealand: Day 22

Gold rule

January 24, 2013

The weather was not my friend today, because today was one day I especially wanted to be clear or, at the very worst, partly cloudy skies. Instead, the skies were completely overcast, with many areas of darker gray threatening rain. Temperatures were lower, too, probably in the lower 60s range, perhaps even dipping into the high 50s as the day and our travels progressed.

Oops, I did it again: I was awake until 4:00am, and then when the 6:15 wake-up call came, I stumbled around the room unable to keep my eyes open. I turned on the water for a nice warm shower which usually wakes me up, but it was taking too long to warm up to the desired temperature, so I laid down on the bed for just a minute. The next thing to happen was one of my fellow travelers banging on my door to let me know the bus was leaving in 15 minutes. Fortunately I already had completed most of my packing, so I hurriedly finished putting away the last few items while simultaneously brushing my teeth. As I was leaving the room I noticed a strange hissing noise; it was the water from the shower, now quite comfortably warm. I made it to the bus just in time, but out of breath and wheezing, for I still had not completely recovered from my recent illness.

The group visited Baldwin Street, but I slept through it. They then went to Olveston House for a tour of this luxurious home completed in 1904, In the confusion of my half-awake status, I thought we had reached Baldwin Street, and I said I had seen the site yesterday. However, a nagging thought troubled me as I started to fall back asleep. I looked around me and realized our surroundings were nothing like the middle-class homes I had seen around Baldwin Street yesterday. I asked the driver where we were, and he told me we were at Olveston House.

I rushed into the house, and I was just in time to join the tour. I'm glad I didn't miss the tour because Olveston House is a carefully preserved monument to upper class life at the turn of the nineteenth century. Olveston House was meticulously curated, down to the miniature bric-a-brac filling small cabinets in the rooms. The guides were enthusiastic and well-informed, giving us a window into a long-lost world. Of course, with this house being the home of someone from the privileged class, there is the question of who was exploited in order to help this family enjoy such a lavish lifestyle, but I elected not to apply a Marxist analysis to the situation today. Instead I chose to just enjoy the lovely, lovely home, and tried to imagine what it would have been like to enjoy such a lifestyle at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The segment of the tour dealing with Dunedin was now completed, and the remainder of the day was devoted to driving to our next destination, the Hermitage Hotel in Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park. We made a brief stop to view the unusual Moeraki Boulders. These enigmatic spherical and hemispherical boulders were grouped together at the edge of the beach on the Pacific Ocean. How they were formed and how they reached their present location is a mystery. One of my fellow travelers noted that one of the boulders had cracked open partially, and he had seen an orange interior of the boulder. "So they have a creamy filling, do they?" I commented, drawing a laugh.

Our trip took us through Waitiki Valley ("wai" means water in the Maori language), and the valley's water-associated naming is only appropriate because it is the location of several hydroelectric plants supplying a substantial portion of New Zealand's electricity. Almost all of New Zealand's power comes from hydroelectric sources; very early it had rejected the use of nuclear power sources. We stopped for a brief look at one of these hydroelectric plants, one of which had formed the largest lake on New Zealand's South Island, and the second largest lake in New Zealand.

The day's journey took us through Twizel, which was the site of the climactic Battle of Pelennor Fields in The Return of the King. As I watched the views pass by, it was easy to recreate in my mind that magnificent scene from The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but one thing was missing. The scenery was majestic, but once again the cloud ceiling was lower than the peaks of the mountains we were passing. It was as if the clouds had trimmed the tops of the mountains just as one trims a hedge. The overcast clouds robbed the scenery of much of its color, rendering what should have been spectacular to merely very interesting. We were unable to see Mt. Cook at all, which was particularly frustrating because I had seen numerous post cards showing its almost overwhelming beauty. I think being unable to appreciate the beauty of Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park frustrated me much more than being unable to take that skydive in Queenstown. At least the skydive could be done practically anywhere; the views of Aoraki/Mt. Cook could not be replicated. I was being denied some of the very things I had come to see in my trip to New Zealand. The thought of returning to New Zealand some day offers some consolation, but only a little, for I do not know when I will be able to return.

Trimmed mountains
Trimmed mountains

However, five of us did have one exciting adventure. While the remainder of the group continued on to the hotel for the evening, we took a helicopter ride. Our original plan had been to take a "grand circle" tour that would include views of the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers we had been unable to see because of poor weather in Franz Josef a week ago, but bad weather once again prevented our viewing of the setting of the lighting of the beacons scene in The Return of the King. We had to settle for a less grand tour that would be limited to the Tasman Glacier.

This trip, which was supposed to include views of Mt. Cook, was further limited by the low cloud ceiling, and we never saw Mt. Cook either up close or from a distance. The pilot tried to find a break in the clouds which would allow him to take us to see Mt. Cook, and he did find a small break. However, the break was unstable, and the pilot feared it would close after we passed through it, making it difficult to find a safe passage back through the clouds, possibly risking a crash against a mountainside.

So, regretfully, the pilot abandoned his efforts to reach Mt. Cook, and we continued on our journey up the Tasman Glacier. I had never seen a glacier at such close range before, and it was a fascinating view.

Mountainside close-up
Fog-shrouded mountains close up

The pilot found a safe place to land the helicopter, and got out and walked on the glacier. I expected the glacier to be covered with snow, but instead the surface was as firm as a rock. We found a few small pools of water that had formed on the surface of the glacier, so we helped ourselves to some of the purest water on the planet. It was icy cold, of course, and had a very clean taste, but I can't say it was an overwhelmingly remarkable difference. Nevertheless, I wished I had brought my water bottle so I could have brought some glacier water back with me, if for nothing else other than its novelty value.

Tasman Glacier
The glacial ice was as hard as the rocks it contained

After our walk on Tasman Glacier, we took off and circled the walls of the valley some more, seeing some very picturesque waterfalls, and a small turquoise lake make up of glacial water.

Glacial waterafalls
 
Glacial lake

We also had a close-up view of the Hochstetter Icefall, which is essentially a frozen waterfall.

Hochstetter Icefall
Hochstetter Icefall

I took many photographs with my digital camera, so the best photos will have to wait until I get home. However, I also brought my iPad along, so I was able to take some photos of the helicopter trip which are included here.

I would have loved for the helicopter ride to have lasted longer, but I would have loved even more for good weather to have been present so we could have appreciated the ride more, gathered a more spectacular impression of the location. Once again, all we were able to obtain was a hint of what we were missing.

We landed safely, and then we were taken the short distance to our hotel for the evening. Of all the hotels in which we had stayed during this trip, the Hermitage Hotel stands out as one of the best, superseded perhaps only by our accommodations at the Grand Mercure Monaco Resort in Nelson. I was fortunate enough to obtain a proverbial "room with a view," and what a grand view it was. If only the weather had been better, if only I could have seen the entire view rather than the edited version caused by the low cloud ceiling, I would have been as happy as a man can be.

I apologize for complaining so much about the impaired views, but the very purpose of my coming to New Zealand was to see just these views for myself. Of five major vista points I had hoped to see, I've only been able to see one. While I greatly appreciated being able to see Milford Sound and Fiordland National Park when the weather was good, this amounts to my seeing only 20% of the highlights I had hoped to see. That's not a very good return on what has been a fairly significant investment.

Thinking of this trip in terms of investment and ROI probably is the wrong way to think, but it's difficult to avoid after a series of disappointments. It seems that, for the most part, my desire to view a particular location is inversely proportional to the likelihood of my actually being able to see it. Fortunately there have been exceptions. I certainly cannot say this trip has been a bad experience; looking back over my journal entries for the past 21 days one certainly doesn't get that impression. Even the somewhat disappointing experiences, such as this afternoon's helicopter ride, had its moments of great beauty and excitement. I must hold on to my enduring attitude of optimism. I must go to sleep tonight believing that the weather tomorrow is going to be terrific, that in the morning I will be able to fully appreciate everything the view from my hotel window has to offer, and that our journey by boat to the edge of the Tasman Glacier will give us a chance to finally see the elusive Mt. Cook.

Gold rule

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